Compaq ProLiant 8500 ProLiant 8500 Server Technology - Page 20

TC000604TB TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.) ... Remote-Flash Redundant ROM The ProLiant 8500 server is equipped with a Remote-flash Redundant ROM that improves manageability. Using the Compaq Remote ROM Flash Utility, administrators can flash the system ROMs for a wide range of Compaq servers, locally or across the network. The Remote ROM Flash Utility is a combination of components that allows administrators to upgrade the system ROMs on servers from a single point of execution. The ROM upgrades can either be flashed individually or batched together to perform multiple ROM upgrades in a single step. The following components are used in the ROM flash process: • User interface. The user interface is command-line driven and allows administrators to tailor functionality to a specific environment. • System ROM Flash Service. The System ROM Flash Service allows the user interface to perform essential functionality on remote servers for the ROM upgrade process, including remote system shutdown, mounting, and unmounting the system partition. • Compaq System Configuration Utility. The latest version of the Compaq System Configuration Utility is integrated within the Compaq Remote ROM Flash Utility. Parts of this utility have been enhanced to allow flawless firmware upgrades. • ROMPAQ Utility and image files. Generally, any version of the ROMPaq Utility and image files can be used. The latest ROMPaq Utility and images are available from the Compaq website at www.compaq.com/support/files/server/ROMPAQ/index.html. It is possible to maintain a common collection of ROM images in a particular directory on the local administrative client or on a shared resource. All of these components work together to deliver an easy-to-manage solution for administrators who need to manage large-scale ROM upgrades, like those required for a year 2000 update, or a few ROM upgrades at a time. Compaq Remote-flash Redundant ROM provides a unique redundancy feature that helps ensure system availability. During the ROM flash process, it is possible for a problem to occur. Typically, a failure during the ROM flash would shut down the server and require the administrator to replace the ROM. This could be a significant problem if, for example, the flash were scheduled for a time when the administrator was unavailable. Theoretically, the server could be down for hours until the administrator became available to manage the situation. Compaq's unique redundancy feature helps ensure system availability because it gives the system the ability to recover the last known good system ROM in the event that the current system ROM is corrupted. When a ProLiant 8500 server leaves the factory, both system ROMs contain the same image. Through subsequent boots of the server, if integrity errors are detected by the boot block, the system will automatically launch the redundant image and continue the POST process. If the redundant ROM is launched, the user will see an error message identifying the faulty system ROM. Auto-Default ROM Configuration When a ProLiant 8500 server is first powered on, the system ROM detects the unconfigured state of the hardware and provides default configuration settings for most devices. By providing this initialization, the system can run Diagnostics and other software applications before running the normal SmartStart and System Configuration applications. If the user inserts a System Configuration, Diagnostics, or SmartStart CD in the CD-ROM drive before powering on the server, the system ROM will boot using that CD. If the system ROM does not detect one of these CDs, the user will be prompted for the intended OS. The system will reboot if any OS-dependent configurations have changed with the new OS selection. If the selected OS- 20